People ride a scooter past a destroyed pro-Russian fighters' APC near the city of Lisichansk, Luhansk region, eastern Ukraine Saturday, July 26, 2014. Volunteers from the Donbas Battalion, a volunteer militia for a united Ukraine, told The Associated Press their units, along with the Ukrainian army, regained control of Lisichansk on Friday. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

FILE - A workman quickly slides a dustmop over the floor at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Va., near Washington, in this March 3, 2005 file photo. About a dozen former CIA officials named in a classified Senate report on decade-old agency interrogation practices were notified in recent days that they would be able to review parts of the document in a secure room in suburban Washington after signing a secrecy agreement. Then, on Friday, July 25, 2014 many were told they would not be able to see it, after all. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

This second page of a four page document released by the U.S. State Department in Washington, July 27, 2014 shows a satellite image that purports to shows self propelled artillery only found in Russian military units, on the Russian side of the border, oriented in the direction of a Ukrainian military unit within Ukraine. The United States says the images back up its claims that rockets have been fired from Russia into eastern Ukraine and heavy artillery for separatists has also crossed the border. (AP Photo/U.S. State Department)

FILE - Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley speaks with reporters in his office inside the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Md., in this April 7, 2014 file photo. O'Malley was returning to Iowa on Saturday, July 26, 2014 headlining a fundraiser for state Sen. Rita Hart in Clinton, a town on the banks of the Mississippi River, and another event in North Liberty for Kevin Kinney, a Johnson County sheriff's deputy seeking an open state Senate seat. After a Saturday night speech in Omaha to help the Nebraska Democratic Party, OMalley was joining with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jack Hatch, who is challenging Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, for fundraisers in western Iowa on Sunday and a canvassing kickoff in Sioux City. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

This third page of a four page document released by the U.S. State Department in Washington, July 27, 2014, shows a satellite image that purports to shows a before and after close-up of the artillery strike depicted in the lower portion of the inset in the previous graphic. The United States says the images back up its claims that rockets have been fired from Russia into eastern Ukraine and heavy artillery for separatists has also crossed the border. (AP Photo/U.S. State Department)

FILE - In this Sunday, July 13, 2014 file image made from video by The Associated Press, smoke rises from the direction of Tripoli airport in Tripoli, Libya. The United States shut down its embassy in Libya on Saturday, July 26, 2014, and evacuated its diplomats to neighboring Tunisia under U.S. military escort amid a significant deterioration in security in Tripoli as fighting intensified between rival militias, the State Department said. (AP Photo/File)

A protester wears a mask depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin , during a a protest against Russia's behavior in the Ukraine conflict, in front of the Russian Embassy in Warsaw, Poland, on Sunday July 27, 2014. .(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, left, speaks during a press conference accompanied by Defense Minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, center, and Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans, right, in The Hague, Netherlands, Sunday, July 27, 2014. Rutte explained to the media that his government has decided against sending armed troops to protect the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, The Hague, Netherlands. (AP Photo/Mike Corder)

This fourth page of a four page document released by the U.S. State Department in Washington, July 27, 2014 shows a satellite image that purports to shows ground scarring at two multiple rocket launch sites oriented in the direction of Ukraine military units. The wide area of impacts near the Ukrainian military units indicates fire from multiple rocket launchers. The bottom impact crater shows impact within a local village. The United States says the images back up its claims that rockets have been fired from Russia into eastern Ukraine and heavy artillery for separatists has also crossed the border. (AP Photo/U.S. State Department)

FILE - In this March 8, 2010 file photo, US Ambassador to Kuwait Deborah Jones is seen in Kuwait City. On Saturday, July 26, 2014,The United States shut down its embassy in Libya and evacuated its diplomats to neighboring Tunisia under U.S. military escort amid a significant deterioration in security in Tripoli as fighting intensified between rival militias, the State Department said. On Sunday, July 20, 2014, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones tweeted about heavy shelling and other exchanges of fire in the vicinity of the embassy. (AP Photo/Gustavo Ferrari, File)

A pro-Russian fighters' APC stands abandoned near the city of Lisichansk, Luhansk region, eastern Ukraine Saturday, July 26, 2014. Volunteers from the Donbas Battalion, a volunteer militia for a united Ukraine, told The Associated Press their units, along with the Ukrainian army, regained control of Lisichansk on Friday. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

Dutch, right, and Australian policemen talk in the city of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine Sunday, July 27, 2014. A team of international police officers that had been due to visit the site of the Malaysian plane disaster in eastern Ukraine cancelled the trip Sunday after receiving reports of fighting in the area. Alexander Hug, the deputy head of a monitoring team from the OSCE in Europe, said it would be too dangerous for the unarmed mission to travel to the site from its current location in the rebel-held city of Donetsk. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

Ukrainian Ministry Emergency officer, left, Donetsk People's Republic fighter, 2nd left, and members of the OSCE mission in Ukraine examine a map as they discuss the situation around the site of the crashed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in the city of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine Sunday, July 27, 2014. A team of international police officers that had been due to visit the site of the Malaysian plane disaster in eastern Ukraine cancelled the trip Sunday after receiving reports of fighting in the area. Alexander Hug, the deputy head of a monitoring team from the OSCE in Europe, said it would be too dangerous for the unarmed mission to travel to the site from its current location in the rebel-held city of Donetsk. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

Fighting intensifies near MH17 disaster site

People ride a scooter past a destroyed pro-Russian fighters' APC near the city of Lisichansk, Luhansk region, eastern Ukraine Saturday, July 26, 2014. Volunteers from the Donbas Battalion, a volunteer militia for a united Ukraine, told The Associated Press their units, along with the Ukrainian army, regained control of Lisichansk on Friday. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

FILE - A workman quickly slides a dustmop over the floor at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Va., near Washington, in this March 3, 2005 file photo. About a dozen former CIA officials named in a classified Senate report on decade-old agency interrogation practices were notified in recent days that they would be able to review parts of the document in a secure room in suburban Washington after signing a secrecy agreement. Then, on Friday, July 25, 2014 many were told they would not be able to see it, after all. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

This second page of a four page document released by the U.S. State Department in Washington, July 27, 2014 shows a satellite image that purports to shows self propelled artillery only found in Russian military units, on the Russian side of the border, oriented in the direction of a Ukrainian military unit within Ukraine. The United States says the images back up its claims that rockets have been fired from Russia into eastern Ukraine and heavy artillery for separatists has also crossed the border. (AP Photo/U.S. State Department)

FILE - Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley speaks with reporters in his office inside the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Md., in this April 7, 2014 file photo. O'Malley was returning to Iowa on Saturday, July 26, 2014 headlining a fundraiser for state Sen. Rita Hart in Clinton, a town on the banks of the Mississippi River, and another event in North Liberty for Kevin Kinney, a Johnson County sheriff's deputy seeking an open state Senate seat. After a Saturday night speech in Omaha to help the Nebraska Democratic Party, OMalley was joining with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jack Hatch, who is challenging Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, for fundraisers in western Iowa on Sunday and a canvassing kickoff in Sioux City. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

This third page of a four page document released by the U.S. State Department in Washington, July 27, 2014, shows a satellite image that purports to shows a before and after close-up of the artillery strike depicted in the lower portion of the inset in the previous graphic. The United States says the images back up its claims that rockets have been fired from Russia into eastern Ukraine and heavy artillery for separatists has also crossed the border. (AP Photo/U.S. State Department)

FILE - In this Sunday, July 13, 2014 file image made from video by The Associated Press, smoke rises from the direction of Tripoli airport in Tripoli, Libya. The United States shut down its embassy in Libya on Saturday, July 26, 2014, and evacuated its diplomats to neighboring Tunisia under U.S. military escort amid a significant deterioration in security in Tripoli as fighting intensified between rival militias, the State Department said. (AP Photo/File)

A protester wears a mask depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin , during a a protest against Russia's behavior in the Ukraine conflict, in front of the Russian Embassy in Warsaw, Poland, on Sunday July 27, 2014. .(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, left, speaks during a press conference accompanied by Defense Minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, center, and Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans, right, in The Hague, Netherlands, Sunday, July 27, 2014. Rutte explained to the media that his government has decided against sending armed troops to protect the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, The Hague, Netherlands. (AP Photo/Mike Corder)

This fourth page of a four page document released by the U.S. State Department in Washington, July 27, 2014 shows a satellite image that purports to shows ground scarring at two multiple rocket launch sites oriented in the direction of Ukraine military units. The wide area of impacts near the Ukrainian military units indicates fire from multiple rocket launchers. The bottom impact crater shows impact within a local village. The United States says the images back up its claims that rockets have been fired from Russia into eastern Ukraine and heavy artillery for separatists has also crossed the border. (AP Photo/U.S. State Department)

FILE - In this March 8, 2010 file photo, US Ambassador to Kuwait Deborah Jones is seen in Kuwait City. On Saturday, July 26, 2014,The United States shut down its embassy in Libya and evacuated its diplomats to neighboring Tunisia under U.S. military escort amid a significant deterioration in security in Tripoli as fighting intensified between rival militias, the State Department said. On Sunday, July 20, 2014, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones tweeted about heavy shelling and other exchanges of fire in the vicinity of the embassy. (AP Photo/Gustavo Ferrari, File)

A pro-Russian fighters' APC stands abandoned near the city of Lisichansk, Luhansk region, eastern Ukraine Saturday, July 26, 2014. Volunteers from the Donbas Battalion, a volunteer militia for a united Ukraine, told The Associated Press their units, along with the Ukrainian army, regained control of Lisichansk on Friday. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

Dutch, right, and Australian policemen talk in the city of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine Sunday, July 27, 2014. A team of international police officers that had been due to visit the site of the Malaysian plane disaster in eastern Ukraine cancelled the trip Sunday after receiving reports of fighting in the area. Alexander Hug, the deputy head of a monitoring team from the OSCE in Europe, said it would be too dangerous for the unarmed mission to travel to the site from its current location in the rebel-held city of Donetsk. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

Ukrainian Ministry Emergency officer, left, Donetsk People's Republic fighter, 2nd left, and members of the OSCE mission in Ukraine examine a map as they discuss the situation around the site of the crashed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in the city of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine Sunday, July 27, 2014. A team of international police officers that had been due to visit the site of the Malaysian plane disaster in eastern Ukraine cancelled the trip Sunday after receiving reports of fighting in the area. Alexander Hug, the deputy head of a monitoring team from the OSCE in Europe, said it would be too dangerous for the unarmed mission to travel to the site from its current location in the rebel-held city of Donetsk. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

DONETSK,Ukraine— Ukrainian armed forces mounted a major onslaught against pro-Russian separatist fighters Sunday in an attempt to gain control over the area where a Malaysia Airlines plane was downed earlier this month.

The U.S. State Department, meanwhile, released satellite images that it says back up its claims that rockets have been fired from Russia into eastern Ukraine and heavy artillery for separatists has also crossed the border.

A four-page document released by the State Department seems to show blast marks from where rockets were launched and craters where they landed. Officials said the images, sourced from the U.S. director of national intelligence, show heavy weapons fired between July 21 and July 26 — after the July 17 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

Moscow has angrily denied allegations of Russia’s involvement in eastern Ukraine. Russia’s foreign ministry over the weekend accused the U.S. of conducting “an unrelenting campaign of slander against Russia, ever more relying on open lies.”

Secretary of State John Kerry spoke by phone Sunday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, urging him to stop the flow of heavy weapons and rocket and artillery fire from Russia into Ukraine, said a State Department official. Kerry did not accept Lavrov’s denial that heavy weapons from Russia were contributing to the conflict, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of the call.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow.

Reports of the intensifying unrest in eastern Ukraine prompted a postponement of a trip to the site by a team of Dutch and Australian police officers who had planned to start searching for evidence and the remaining bodies.

In the Netherlands, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said his government has rejected the idea of deploying armed troops to secure the crash site because there is no way they could achieve “military superiority” in a region where heavily armed pro-Russian rebels are battling Ukrainian government forces.

“The option we looked at was a military option in which you could secure the area so you can work in a stable environment,” Rutte said. But “that the option would be such a provocation to the separatists that it could destabilize the situation.”

Ukraine’s National Security Council said Sunday that government troops have encircled Horlivka, a key rebel stronghold, and that there had been fighting in other cities in the east. Horlivka lies around 20 miles north of the main rebel-held city of Donetsk.

The armed forces “have increased assaults on territory held by pro-Russian mercenaries, destroyed checkpoints and positions and moved very close to Horlivka,” the council said in a statement.

A representative of the separatist military command in Donetsk confirmed that there had been fighting in Horlivka but said rebel fighters were holding their positions.

Elsewhere, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported Sunday that a column of Ukrainian armored personnel carriers, trucks and tanks had entered the town of Shakhtarsk, 10 miles west of the site of the Boeing 777 crash.

Shakhtarsk is a strategic town in the area. By controlling the town, the Ukrainian army would cut off vital rebel supply lines.

Local media reported fighting also taking place in the towns of Snizhne and Torez, the two nearest midsized towns to the crash site.

The government accused rebel forces of firing rockets Sunday on residential apartment blocks in Horlivka in what they said was an attempt to discredit the army and whip up anti-government sentiment. The separatist self-declared “Donetsk People’s Republic” has accused the army of being responsible for that and other rocket attacks in nearby cities.

The Donetsk regional government — which is loyal to Kiev and based elsewhere since rebels took over the area — said Sunday in a statement that at least 13 people, including two children aged 1 and 5, were killed in fighting in Horlivka. It said another five people were killed as a result of clashes in a suburb north of Donetsk.

New York-based Human Rights Watch last week condemned what it said was the Ukrainian government forces’ practice of using unguided rockets in populated urban areas. It said use of the rockets was a violation of international humanitarian law that “may amount to war crimes.”

Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was shot down with a surface-to-air missile over a part of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists on July 17, killing all 298 people on board. U.S. and Ukrainian officials say it was shot down by a missile from rebel territory, most likely by mistake.

Ten days after the disaster, a full-fledged investigation still has not begun at the crash site, with some bodies still unrecovered and the site forensically compromised. Concerns about the integrity of the site were raised further when the parents of a young woman who died in the disaster that had flown from their home in Perth, Australia, visited the site Saturday outside the village of Hrabove and even sat on part of the plane’s wreckage.

It remained unclear when the forensic experts from the Netherlands and Australia would be able to begin their work at the site.

Alexander Hug, the deputy head of a monitoring team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said it was too dangerous for the unarmed officers to travel there from their location in Donetsk.

“We reassess the situation continuously, and we will start to redeploy tomorrow morning back to the site if the situation changes,” Hug said.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott had said earlier Sunday that unarmed Australian police would be part of the Dutch-led police force to secure the area and help recover victims’ remains.

Abbott said that by using unarmed police, Ukraine’s parliament won’t need to ratify the deployment as it would if the security force were to be armed.

“This is a risky mission. There’s no doubt about that,” Abbott told reporters. “But all the professional advice that I have is that the safest way to conduct it is unarmed, as part of a police-led humanitarian mission,” he said.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a statement that his country would send dozens of police and that his country had received assurances from pro-Russia separatists that they would provide protection for investigators.

Flights from Ukraine to the Netherlands have taken 227 coffins containing victims of the plane disaster. Officials say the exact number of people held in the coffins still needs to be determined by forensic experts in the Netherlands.

The Malaysia Airlines disaster prompted some expectations in the West that Russia would scale back its involvement in the uprising in Ukraine’s east, but the opposite seems to be the case.

In addition to producing evidence that rockets have been fired into Ukraine from Russia, the U.S. has said it has seen powerful rocket systems moving closer to the border.

Separately, the New York Times reported Sunday that U.S. defense and intelligence officials were working on a plan that would enable the Obama administration to give Ukraine specific locations of surface-to-air missiles controlled by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. The plan, if implemented, would allow the Ukraine government to target these missile sites for destruction, the newspaper said.

Citing U.S. sources, the Times said it was unclear if President Barack Obama would want to give Ukraine the more precise information about military targets because it would amount to America getting more involved in the conflict.

In Warsaw, Poland, about 250 people marched through the city to protest what they called the “terror” imposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. Some of the demonstrators carried Ukrainian flags, and there were banners that proclaimed “Putin is a Sponsor of Terror” and “Europe, Stop Just Talking. Start Taking Action! Stop Terror in Ukraine.”

Leonard reported from Kiev; Associated Press writers Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow, Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, and Vanessa Gera in Warsaw contributed to this report.